Teachers in Late Antique Christianity

Religion requires education. Soon after the emergence of Christianity, religious education became crucial to the development of Christian communities in towns and in the countryside.

People were educated in different ways: via socialization in families and peer-groups, education by teachers at home, in school and in catechetical settings, and in the form of self-formation.

Religious education, moreover, is transmitted within the tension between human and divine agency: while educational processes are initiated by human teachers, Christ is often understood as the real teacher when it comes to believing in God.

But religion was nonetheless taught by human beings in families, parishes, monasteries and elsewhere.

The present volume analyzes the human agents of such education: bishops, catechists, mothers and fathers, and monastic teachers both male and female.

It thus offers a comparative analysis of teachers' roles in Christian educational contexts, dealing with questions such as: Who taught in late antique Christianity?

Which imagery is used to describe such teaching? What impact do gender ascriptions have on teaching roles and processes? And where do conflicts emerge between different roles and their social settings?